Biometrics has been defined as the “Automated recognition of individuals based on their behavioral and biological characteristics”. [ISO/IEC JTC1 2382-37:2012]. Some examples of biometric processes include DNA matching, fingerprint recognition, face recognition, and speaker recognition.
Two fundamental tenets of biometrics are distinctiveness and persistence. (See Jain et al., “Guidelines for Best Practices in Biometrics Research,” ICB, 2015.) That is, in order to automatically recognize an individual, the behavior and/or biological characteristics must be distinctive, and must persist. It has been recognized, however, that over time many relevant characteristics can change due to diet, illness, trauma, smoking, aging, and even stress. What is needed is a technique that works for any biometric modality having degraded persistence due to such factors, particularly the aging factor, and particularly for speaker recognition and face recognition.